Poe Podcast 04: John promotes his show at the Brighton Fringe on BBC Sussex
20/05/10 11:18
Just appeared on BBC
Sussex to promote the show this evening and this weekend am
appearing at the Old Police Cells Museum as part of the Brighton
Fringe. Tickets are still available from the Fringe Box Office, by telephone 01273
764905 or at the door.
After listening to the fellow who represented West Sussex in the “Sussex Challenge”, I’m now quite hungry for some very un-Poe-like brownies!
Listen to Poe Podcast 04: John Promotes the show on BBC Sussex
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
After listening to the fellow who represented West Sussex in the “Sussex Challenge”, I’m now quite hungry for some very un-Poe-like brownies!
Listen to Poe Podcast 04: John Promotes the show on BBC Sussex
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
0 Comments
Appearing on BBC Sussex radio - 20 May @ 9.40am
19/05/10 13:50
On BBC Sussex tomorrow
morning at around 9.40, I’ll be discussing performing Poe in the
supremely atmospheric basement of the Old Police Cells Museum for
the Brighton Fringe. More ominously, I’ll
also be representing East Sussex in an East vs West Sussex quiz. I
do hope they’re easy on me. Thrilled to be asked, though!
Links:
Listen live to BBC Sussex on iPlayer
Links:
Listen live to BBC Sussex on iPlayer
Find Edgar with iFringe - the official Brighton Fringe Guide for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad!
28/04/10 12:54
Although I’m sure I’ll
be able to find myself at this year’s Fringe beneath Brighton Town
Hall in the Old Police Cells Museum, I think the iFringe iPhone
app essential
to navigate
the maze of choices, bookmark favourites and, most importantly of
all, open a map!
Links:
iFringe - Official Brighton Fringe Guide for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad [iTunes]
Links:
iFringe - Official Brighton Fringe Guide for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad [iTunes]
The Tell-Tale Cipher: Poe and his passion for puzzles
22/04/10 08:58
This rather
breathless piece in Salon discusses a cryptogram
possibly written by Poe. The code remained unsolved until 2000 when
Bokler Systems Corporation declared that Terence Whalen solved the
code as part of their Edgar Allan Poe
Cryptographic Challenge.
Poe often expressed a delight in puzzles and uncrackable codes. A substitution cipher features in his short story, The Gold-Bug (later to inspire Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Dancing Men). I question the depth of Poe’s personal fondness for abstruse cryptograms versus his editorial desire to stir public interest (and boost circulation) via a contest. He certainly loved sensational nonsense and a good hoax and probably would be a crack writer for The Sun in the 21st century.
I’ll return to Poe and his relationship to the detective story in another post ...
Links:
The Tell-Tale Cipher [Salon.com]
The Edgar Allan Poe Cryptographic Challenge [Bokler.com]
Poe often expressed a delight in puzzles and uncrackable codes. A substitution cipher features in his short story, The Gold-Bug (later to inspire Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Dancing Men). I question the depth of Poe’s personal fondness for abstruse cryptograms versus his editorial desire to stir public interest (and boost circulation) via a contest. He certainly loved sensational nonsense and a good hoax and probably would be a crack writer for The Sun in the 21st century.
I’ll return to Poe and his relationship to the detective story in another post ...
Links:
The Tell-Tale Cipher [Salon.com]
The Edgar Allan Poe Cryptographic Challenge [Bokler.com]
Poe Podcast 03: Who is Edgar Allan Poe? A brief biography
07/04/10 19:32
Over the Easter holiday,
I attended a fancy dress party. Of course I went as Poe, but as I
normally shave my head, this was a a different sort of Edgar -
without hair and without a moustache. I told people who I was
supposed to be (stressing that Edgar once did shave off his
moustache in a fit of paranoia) and about the premise of my show
Poe at a backer's party for his proposed magazine The Stylus, where
Poe confides details about his life and recites some of his most
famous work including The Raven and the Tell-Tale Heart - and then
I made a joke about needing to find a decent hairpiece and received
some rather blank stares. I suppose Poe isn't quite the visual icon
in Britain that he is America?
To help provide some context, this week’s podcast is all about the life of Edgar Allan Poe.
Listen to Poe Podcast 03: Who is Edgar Allan Poe? A brief biography and a reading of the poem, “For Annie”
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
To help provide some context, this week’s podcast is all about the life of Edgar Allan Poe.
Listen to Poe Podcast 03: Who is Edgar Allan Poe? A brief biography and a reading of the poem, “For Annie”
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
An ancient volume of memorable lore: Harry Clarke's Poe illustrations
07/04/10 10:13
One of my more treasured
Poe possessions is an early 20th century hardcover edition
of
Tales of Mystery and Imagination illustrated by the
brilliant Harry Clarke. I received it as a gift from a classmate -
Andrea DiPalma if I remember rightly - when I was 17 and the dense
imagery evokes Poe's madness rather vividly.
Inside the volume I also found a yellowed letter from the "New York Buyers and Distributors" at 2579 Eighth Avenue in New York about an estate sale and a handwritten family tree on the reverse of the page. Perhaps the inspiration for an investigation ...
Delight in Clarke's illustrations here at a bibliophile’s blog, A Journey Round My Skull.
Inside the volume I also found a yellowed letter from the "New York Buyers and Distributors" at 2579 Eighth Avenue in New York about an estate sale and a handwritten family tree on the reverse of the page. Perhaps the inspiration for an investigation ...
Delight in Clarke's illustrations here at a bibliophile’s blog, A Journey Round My Skull.
Poe Podcast 02: Origins of the show and other affectations
26/03/10 21:30
I’m in a retrospective
mood as I prepare the final edit of the show for the Brighton
Festival Fringe, so I thought I’d explain the origins of the show
and share an excerpt of a letter of Edgar’s where he speaks about
the “evanescence” of it all. With that affectation of language
...
Listen to Poe Podcast 02: Origins of the show & other affectations
Or:
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
Listen to Poe Podcast 02: Origins of the show & other affectations
Or:
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
Poe Podcast 01: Alone
21/03/10 18:52
I’ve chosen to begin my
series of podcasts on Edgar Allan Poe with an early poem of his,
“Alone”. Although widely anthologised today, the poem wasn’t
published until long after Poe’s death,in 1875 and existed in
manuscript in an album belonging to Lucy Holmes. Edgar also
inscribed several lines of verse attributed to his brother, Henry
Poe, beside his own work.
For more information about the origins of this poem, visit the site of the Maryland Historical Society.
Listen to Poe Podcast 01: Alone
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
For more information about the origins of this poem, visit the site of the Maryland Historical Society.
Listen to Poe Podcast 01: Alone
Subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes Store
Subscribe to the podcast via Feedburner
Tickets on sale now for the Brighton Festival Fringe!
05/03/10 11:26
I am absolutely thrilled
to resurrect Edgar for several performances at this year’s Brighton
Festival Fringe in May - and tickets are on sale now for £10 each.
The setting for the performance is the Old Police
Cells Museum beneath the Town Hall.
It’s a fascinating museum, but only Edgar would choose the dank
sub-basement for this talk about his life, recitations of his most
popular work - all in support of the launch of his new
magazine,
The Stylus.
Buy tickets now through the online box office:
"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."
Buy tickets now through the online box office:
"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."
The Humbug : The New Yorker: Edgar Allan Poe and the economy of horror
05/03/10 00:06
This piece from The New
Yorker by Jill Lepore surveys several books released in 2009 in
honour of Edgar’s 200th birthday. She uses the first flourish of
American magazine writing to contextualise Poe’s life and work and
perhaps unsubtly draws parallels with our own contemporary
financial crisis and the seeming end of the print magazine. She
also nails Poe’s relentless, PT Barnum-esque
self-mythologising.
From the article:
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/04/27/090427crat_atlarge_lepore
From the article:
“The Philosophy of Composition” is a lovely little essay, but, as Poe himself admitted, it’s a bit of jiggery-pokery, too. Poe didn’t actually write “The Raven” backward. The essay is as much a contrivance as the poem itself. Here is a beautiful poem; it does everything a poem should do, is everything a poem should be. And here is a clever essay about the writing of a beautiful poem. Top that.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/04/27/090427crat_atlarge_lepore